


Calm Your Fear

by LibraryMage



Category: Strange Empire (TV)
Genre: Autistic Character, Canon Autistic Character, Found Family, Gen, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 23:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11450937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Rebecca has a nightmare and Kat is there to comfort her.(cw for slightly-graphic description of vivisection)





	Calm Your Fear

**Author's Note:**

> See the end note or hover over the Cree words for translations. Note: I don't speak Cree, so I hope I got the words right.

_Let’s open him up._

_No, please I --_

_The gun, cold metal pressed against her throat.  Just cut him open.  Do it or you both die._

_His screams and his blood welling up as she sliced into his chest.  Screaming and screaming until he was too weak to do it anymore, though he tried.  He tried, but the sound couldn’t come.  His heart.  Exposed.  Slotter’s smile at the sight of the still-conscious man’s beating heart.  Slotter reaching into the man’s chest and cupping the organ in his hands, the blood slick on his skin._

_A hand weakly gripping her wrist as he softly moaned, unable to speak, unable to scream, his eyes pleading, silently begging her to end it, kill him quickly, stop this all right now._

_Slotter’s knife sliding slowly into his heart and sliding back out.  The muscle curving around the metal like dirt around the roots of a plant._

_Night, now._

* * *

 

Rebecca woke with a shout, striking at the figure beside her and missing.

“Rebecca.”  The voice was hard, but soothing.

It was still dark, but in the slight glimmer of moonlight, Rebecca could see it was Kat, crouching beside her bed.

“Rebecca, it’s okay.”

As Rebecca sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Kat put a hand on her knee.  Rebecca instinctively grabbed her hand, gripping it tight to steady the shaking in her own hands.  She took a few deep, shaking breaths in an attempt to calm herself, trying not to think about her lungs that were filling with air and the organ that lay nestled between them, pumping blood through her veins.

Kat pulled herself up onto the bed, leaning against the wall and held her arms open.  Rebecca curled in close to her, her head resting on Kat’s chest.  Kat wrapped her arms around Rebecca as easily as if the young doctor were one of her own girls.  Hearing Kat’s heart beating under her skin sent chills down Rebecca’s spine.  She shifted in the older woman’s arms until her head was laying against her shoulder.

Kat was whispering something.  Rebecca couldn’t understand all the words, but she caught the word _safe._   She didn’t feel that way.  In the light of day, as she moved through the steps of everyday life, she could sometimes believe it.  She could believe they were all safe for now, at least until the next John Slotter came along, and even then, they’d proven they could handle men like him.  But at night as she slept, when it was just her and her mind, with no distractions, all she could think of was the blood and the pulled-back skin and the living, beating heart.

Cutting into flesh had never bothered her before.  She was a doctor.  It was part of her job.  But as she’d pierced his skin she’d felt only revulsion and terror.

One of Kat’s hands moved to Rebecca’s head, gently petting at her hair.  Rebecca nestled in closer to her friend’s chest.

“It’s over,” Kat said.  “He’s gone.  He can't hurt anyone.  He can't make you do anything else.”

Rebecca shut her eyes for a moment, letting herself just float in the feeling of Kat’s arms around her, the warmth of her body, the feeling of her fingers in her hair.

“Kat,” she said quietly, “ayhay.”

“You’re welcome, nisîmis.”

**Author's Note:**

> "ayhay" is Cree for "thank you"
> 
> "nisîmis" is Cree for "my little sister"


End file.
